Blood and Fire
by HarbingerKismet
Summary: 7:52 Storm: Life is never easy for an apostate, but with the mysterious "grey giants" advancing south through Antiva, the young Maeve will be thrown into a set of circumstances that will change Thedas forever.
1. Maeve

She felt like everyone was watching her. It didn't matter who it was—the bald man missing a tooth and chewing on a leg of chicken or turkey or whatever it was, the olive-skinned woman behind the counter marinating in the steam floating up from various pots on her cooking range, the refined-looking gentleman who sat there sipping tea and had two daggers strapped to his back that fit her imaginings of what a Crow would look like, even the kindly middle-aged man who walked from table to table serving drinks and taking empty plates and striking up small talk with the various strangers around the tavern. Every one of them was a suspect, and if they were going to watch her, she'd be keeping an eye on all of them as well.

Maeve hated being around people, but she didn't know where else to be. She missed Nevarra, but she couldn't stay there—it was too close to Orlais, and the last thing she needed was a group of the Divine's own Templars breathing down her throat. It was too dangerous for her to go to Tevinter. She'd either be taken advantage of, become someone's tool, their means of rising to power, or she'd have to use someone else to achieve the same means, and she didn't like the idea of feeding off misery to achieve happiness. The Anderfels and Fereldan were both too far. She didn't have the means of traveling to either place on her own. The Free Marches weren't too bad, but they had Templars just as menacing as the ones under the Divine, and she wasn't willing to take the risk of being captured there. There was always Rivain, but the Qunari had hold of it, and that meant Antiva was really the only place within her reach.

Maybe it was the best place she could be after all, though. Maybe she could join the Crows; surely they had mages in their service. Or maybe she could just head north and convert to the Qun. She'd heard rumors of people in Rivain doing that anyway, and they were fighting against the Divine's armies, the very people who wouldn't hesitate to lock her up if they weren't so busy with their "Exalted March." How bad could the Qunari be in comparison with that? Or maybe she'd just wait until the Templars came for her. Maybe going to the Circle wouldn't be as devastating as she'd always imagined growing up. _Anything_ would be better than whatever she was doing now—she didn't even know what that was.

"What can I get for you?" the kindly man asked as he approached her. She gave him a fleeting glance, then looked back down to her hands resting on the table and clenched them into fists. She hadn't given _that_ much thought. What did she want? She wanted to stop running. She wanted to go back to the way her life was before. She wanted to give back the curse she'd been gifted with at birth. And maybe she wanted a bowl of soup, but for all the power her gift gave her, she couldn't conjure coins out of thin air.

The man was still staring at Maeve, one eyebrow raised and wrinkling his forehead and creasing the smile lines on his face despite his lack of smile. Even though his hair was graying and left only streaks of brown here and there, she could spot some measure of playfulness in his eyes, a sense of youth that lingered just beneath the surface. Still, she saw a piece of her father in his expression, a scolding scrutiny that told her he wasn't going to go away if she just stayed silent.

"Um," Maeve stammered, "maybe just a cup of water."

His eyes narrowed at her request, and he stared at her a few moments longer than necessary as he backed away from her table. He kept watching her even as he approached the cook behind the counter. He whispered something to her with his eyes glued to Maeve in a sideways glance, and her heart hammered in her chest in a bout of panic. He knew. All it took was the exchange of a few words, and somehow he knew.

Maeve thought she would hyperventilate before her rationale kicked in. There's no way he would know, not unless the Templars had already passed through looking for her, and, if they had, she'd be in the Circle by now. She had to trace the grains on the table before she would believe it, and by the time she was done her thumb was bleeding underneath the fingernail, but at least her breathing was back in control. The last thing she needed was a mental breakdown in the middle of a crowd of people.

Maeve pushed against the skin of her thumb, forcing the blood out of the stinging wound, and sucked at it every time the blood collected enough to turn to a deep maroon, and each time she did, her fingers ached at the memory of every time she'd done it to every other nail she had. Add her torn up fingers to the callouses on her palms and her hands were a mess. She didn't know whether to blame it on her curse or her own insecurities.

A bowl of stew plopped on the table before her just as soon as the wound under her nail stopped bleeding quite so much. Maeve jumped at the man suddenly standing next to her and couldn't help but wonder how long he'd been there. His eyes were narrowed and his brows raised in a familiar expression. She'd seen the same expression on her father when he'd told her repeatedly to eat everything on her plate. Maeve's stomach growled when she looked down at the stew as she realized how much she wanted it—he wouldn't have to worry about her leaving any scraps behind. But that was neither here nor there; her pockets were still empty.

"I can't pay for this," Maeve said in a thick voice. It took every ounce of strength she had not to reach for the pewter spoon and inhale the stew, and she had to keep her jaw tightly shut so that her copious amounts of saliva wouldn't betray her. She shoved her hands into her laps in tight balls and bit her lips together just in case.

"You look like you haven't eaten in days," the man said, his Antivan accent coloring every letter of his sentence. "Eat."

Maeve cracked her knuckles in her lap and licked her lips as she stared down at the stew. She had to swallow for fear of choking on the spit that had collected in her mouth. She looked up at the man again—he was still staring down at her, a hand on his hip and that stern look plastered to his face. That was as good of permission as any, and before Maeve knew what she was doing, she grabbed the spoon and started scooping dollops of broth into her mouth, catching strands of hair between her lips as she leaned over the table. She'd intended to savor the chunks of meat and potato, to eat them slowly, suck on them a little before she started chewing, but they went down her throat as quickly as they went into her mouth, and, before she knew it, she was looking down at an empty bowl.

The man was smiling when she looked back up at him, crow's feet thick at the corners of his eyes. He picked up the bowl triumphantly and said, "I'll bring you another bowl."

Maeve's cheeks flushed red with guilt and she tried to protest, but before she could get a word out, her stomach growled at her. The man laughed lightheartedly and walked back over to the counter before Maeve even had a chance to feel embarrassed. The woman at the counter smiled at him and glanced over at Maeve after the man said a few words to her. She filled up the bowl with a certain rhythm to her movements, and, by the time the man was walking back over to Maeve, all trace of guilt she felt was long gone. She barely waited for the bowl to hit the table before she grabbed the spoon and started shoveling more stew down her mouth.

Maeve couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten anything of substance. She hadn't been so worried about it the past few days. The only thing that'd been on her mind was getting away. If she'd been of a clear head, she might've grabbed her parents' cache of silver before she left, but she couldn't stand to stay there a second longer than necessary. She was long gone before she even knew what she was doing, and by the time she realized where she was, she was forced to eat things that made her stomach turn—toads, rabbits, suspicious fruit that probably only tasted good because she was so hungry and gave her horrible cramps afterwards. This stew tasted like heaven to her, even though it barely had a chance to hit her tongue before it was moving down to her stomach.

By the time Maeve was done with her third or fourth bowl—she couldn't remember exactly how many she'd had—the man was sitting at the table across from her leaning his head on a hand with a contented smile. "What's your name?" the man asked her as she wiped her mouth on the back of her hands just to make sure she didn't leave anything behind.

"It's Maeve," she muttered in response. She hadn't been so eager to share anything about herself with anyone before, but she felt like she owed him something, and answering questions was a price she could afford to pay.

"Tell me, Maeve," the man said, "what's a young woman like yourself doing traveling alone?"

That was one question Maeve didn't want to answer—not that she was sure she had an exact answer. She started tracing the grains on the table again, this time with her recently healed middle finger, but didn't have to for long before a stranger slammed through the tavern doors and saved her from answering.

"Did you hear the news?" the man exclaimed as he took the first open seat closest to the door. The man sitting with Maeve turned his attention to the crier, as did everyone else in the tavern. "They say the Qunari have taken Ayesleigh," the man said. "Pushed back the Divine's armies. They're pulling back and reinforcing Afsaana and Treviso."

"That's not good," the bald man said as he smacked his tongue against the gap in his teeth. "If they reach Afsaana _or_ Treviso, they can move inland by sea and take Antiva City. If they get _that_ far, it won't be long before they come here."

"You're telling me," the crier said. "I'm packing up my stuff and taking the wife and heading to Orlais. Maker help us all if they ever make it there."

"Well I'm staying right here," another man said from the opposite side of the room. "As long as Massimo keeps his tavern open, I'll be here to drink in it," he said as he raised his tankard to the air and nodded a head at the man sitting with Maeve.

The man smiled in response and said, "And as long as I have customers to serve, the drink will keep coming."

The bald man laughed and added, "When those giants get here, we'll drink 'em under the table and force 'em to leave."

The man sitting across from Maeve, the one they called Massimo, laughed with the rest of the patrons before he said, "Best we get in some practice—drinks for everyone, on the house."

The various patrons cheered and raised their tankards, a few shouting, "To Massimo," before they took swigs of their ale. The crier was the only one besides Maeve who wasn't hailing, and he slipped out the tavern doors seconds later.

"Do you really think the Qunari will make it this far?" Maeve mumbled to Massimo.

"It's hard to say," Massimo said with a quiet voice. Maeve could barely hear him above the other patrons—a few of them were joining together in song, and the rest of the customers were gathering around to watch with chatter and laughter. "The combined armies of the Imperium and the Chantry are mighty, but so are these gray giants."

"You don't sound very worried."

"My dear, I will find cause to worry when Seleny starts burning," Massimo replied. "I am concerned as to why one such as yourself would come to Antiva during these dark times, though, and alone no less." The smile on Massimo's face was gentle, but underneath Maeve could hear the words being spoken by his lips: you aren't off the hook yet.

"I," Maeve stuttered, "I was just passing through."

"To go where, might I ask?"

"To… to…"

"As I thought," Massimo said with a gentle laugh. "We have an extra bed in the cellar. You can stay here."

"Please," Maeve said, lifting her hands from her lap and knocking her knuckles against the edge of the table as she did so. She took barely a moment to wince before she finished, "I don't want to take advantage of your hospitality."

Massimo pushed his chair back and stood before he said with a smile, "Oh, you thought this was a charity? You'll work off your rent. Don't think just because you came in here looking disheartened and famished means you'll get anything for free. I imagine these drunkards will make quite the mess before morning, and I expect you to clean every speck of spittle they leave behind." He started walking back toward the counter with Maeve's bowl as he said, "Oh, and you owe me for the stew, too."


	2. Tyrus

"Those who oppose thee shall know the wrath of heaven. Field and forest shall burn, the seas shall rise and devour them, the wind shall tear their nations from the face of the earth, lightning shall rain down from the sky, they shall cry out to their false gods, and find silence," the chanter voiced from somewhere off to the left.

Normally, Tyrus found comfort in the recitation of the verses from the Chant of Light, but no amount of prayer brought comfort to him in this place, even surrounded by friends and familiars as he was. There was something not altogether right about masses of soldiers, whether they were from the holy Templar Order or not, taking up refuge in the homes of the native Antivans, even if it was to fight off the murderous heretics making their way south.

They should all be at the Circle of Magi, if only they could all fit. The Templars housing that area were the ones who had gotten there first—the Antivans, of course, and the Nevarrans and the Marchers—and the ones of most import, mostly the Orlaisians, so Fereldans like Tyrus had to camp in the city. The Tevinters were closer than most, but Divine Justina III would never allow the Black Divine and her followers to house in a Circle under the protection of the Chantry, so they were holed up in the city with the rest of the Order. Tyrus couldn't decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Most of the Antivans had fled to Antiva City by way of ship or foot, but was it really worth the Tevinters spreading their heresy? Wasn't it already bad enough that the grey giants were converting their quarry to their sacrilegious ways?

"You look lost in thought," came a voice through the crowd around him.

Tyrus took his elbows from his knees and got to his feet quickly. "Knight-Captain Roland," Tyrus said with a nod.

"Ever the ponderous one, Tyrus," Roland said. "What troubles you? Don't tell me you're wishing for the action."

"It's not that," Roland lied. A part of him did wish he could fight the heretical giants himself, it was true. Tyrus was only an initiate, and thus far it had been reason enough to keep him out of the fighting. A deep part of him ached to prove himself against the heretics, but those dormant wishes weren't the ones that plagued him now. He'd learned to set his childish avarice aside long ago. "The giants are still making their way south. Why does the Maker not aid us with His power?"

"Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow," said Roland as he took a seat next to Tyrus.

Tyrus followed suit and sat back in his spot before he finished, "In their blood the Maker's will is written."

"These Qunari will be beaten back when the Maker wills it," Roland muttered with a smile, small wrinkles creasing various places on his face—a hint that old age was coming, though he wasn't there quite yet.

"And if they wipe Antiva from the face of Thedas first?" Tyrus said before he knew the words were coming out of his mouth.

"Then that, too, is the Maker's will. He has a plan for all of us, one that we may not always see," Roland replied.

Tyrus sighed and muttered, "Honestly, Knight-Captain, sometimes I think you would have made a better Brother than a Templar."

"A better Mother, too, had I been born a woman," Roland joked.

"Make way, make way," a voice shouted across the camp. "Summon the healers!"

The Knight-Captain was on his feet before Tyrus even knew what was going on. Tyrus got to his own feet and followed Roland to the source of the commotion. A stream of Templars was flooding in, some walking on their own two feet, some leaning on one another for support, and some lying motionless in the arms of others. The Knight-Commander was there already, arms crossed with a stern look on his face as the healthy set the wounded down on the ground.

Tyrus didn't recognize any of the Templars coming in; why would he? Most of them were Antivan or Orlaisian. The few Fereldans that had gone to fight the battle at Ayesleigh were nowhere to be found, which meant they were either captured or dead. Tyrus wasn't sure he would have recognized any of them either since he hadn't been part of the Order for very long, but his heart ached at their loss nonetheless.

A small group of mages burst through the crowd and fell to the sides of the wounded. Tyrus was instantly more aware than he had been seconds before. These mages were from the circle in Antiva City; they had all passed their harrowing, but they were still mages, and that meant that they posed a danger to themselves and everyone around them no matter what. A few were even Spirit Healers, and Tyrus wasn't the only one who was watching them closely. The Knight-Captain and Knight-Commander both moved in closer to the healers as they cast their spells on the wounded, and he could tell from their expressions that they were ready to strike if need be.

"What happened?" the Knight-Commander said as he stared down on the dying Templars.

Others were still flooding in, and Tyrus knew the one who approached the Knight-Commander was a Knight-Commander himself from his regalia. "Gillum," the other Knight-Commander said to Tyrus' own with a thick Orlaisian accent. "The Qunari decimated us. Reinforcements from Par Vollen came during the course of the battle, and we had no choice but to retreat. Ayesleigh is lost."

"Then it won't be long until those heretics are at our doors," Knight-Commander Gillum said.

"A few days, maybe," the Orlaisian replied. "You'd think those bloody murderers would step in."

"The Crows aren't an army, Dmitri," Gillum said. "They'll fight from shadow when it's time."

"It was time four weeks ago when the gray giants landed on the shores and breached the borders of their homeland," said Dmitri. "I don't want those bloody magisters using their magic alongside our Templars, but at this rate we might not have any choice." Dmitri sighed before he mumbled, "This is one battle I do not think we can win, Gillum."

Tyrus couldn't help but agree with this Dmitri. These heretics were called gray giants for a reason; if the rumors he'd heard were true, they stood well over seven feet tall. Tyrus had also heard rumors of their strange powders, some that put their enemies into a frenzy and others that explode upon impact—as flammable as oil, but needing no spark to light the flames. There was also their prowess on the seas. The strength of their navy and the strange fire-spitting contraptions mounted on their ships was the whole reason they'd been able to take Seheron and Rivain so easily. No one had expected them to strike, and their bombardments allowed them to take the ports and move inland before anyone had a chance to amass forces for a counterattack. They had mages of their own as well, so the witches of Rivain were hardly the advantage anyone thought they'd be.

But beating back the gray giants was the reason Tyrus joined the Order in the first place. His great grandfather hadn't even been born yet when the Qunari first invaded, so Tyrus had grown up with the fear and hatred of the Qunari fresh in the blood of his family's veins, and the only thing he wanted to do was drive them back. Even if the battle was hopeless, they had no choice but to fight. Tyrus was certain Knight-Commander Gillum knew that too. He wasn't going to turn away from this; he'd fight to the death if necessary.

"We need to send out a counterattack before they have a chance to move against us again," Knight-Commander Gillum told Dmitri. He placed a ponderous hand on his chin and said, "We must consult with the Divine immediately."

"I agree," Dmitri said with a nod.

"Meet me in the Circle," said Gillum, "I will meet you there shortly."

Dmitri nodded and headed off into the crowd, creating a path through the teems of people with ease. Gillum watched him go, then turned toward the Knight-Captain with determined eyes. He looked angry—he always had the tendency to look angry when he was serious, which was pretty much all the time. Roland never shied away from the Knight-Commander, but Tyrus still hadn't gotten used to him, so he tried to keep his distance even as he approached them.

"Fighting the Qunari isn't working," Gillum said to Roland as he neared. "We need to look for help outside of the Chantry." Tyrus was taken aback at the words, but Roland didn't seem surprised to hear them at all.

"What would you have of me, Gillum?" Roland asked. His informality may have concerned other people, but it didn't concern Gillum. After all, Gillum was younger than Roland and was, in fact, his inferior before he became the Knight-Commander. Tyrus wasn't sure what circumstances had put Gillum in that position instead of Roland, but he knew that Roland and Gillum had known each other for a very long time. They were never formal with each other, and it was one of the only things that betrayed Gillum's stern exterior demeanor.

"There is a man," Gillum started, a sheen of sweat making itself visible above his brow. Tyrus wasn't sure if he was just hot or if he was nervous. "He used to go by the name Richter. I need you to find him."

"That's not much to go on, Knight-Commander," Roland said with a scolding twinge in his voice.

"He'll be somewhere in Antiva," Gillum said, "that much I know. Wherever there's trouble, he's never far from it. I know that's not much to go on, but I need you to find him."

"You truly think this one man will be able to help us?" asked Roland.

"This one man might mean the difference between victory and defeat," Gillum said. In a quieter voice, one that Tyrus could barely hear, he added, "We've tried this the Divine's way. Perhaps now we should take a stab at diplomacy."

"Diplomacy?" Tyrus heard himself say. He remembered himself quickly and took a step toward the Knight-Commander with his head in a slight bow. "With all due respect, Knight-Commander Gillum, why would the Qunari listen to diplomacy? They didn't hesitate before they razed Seere and Alavot to the ground."

"They may yet listen to him."

"Gillum, I share young Tyrus' scrutiny in this matter," Roland said as he took a step forward. "The Qunari are invaders, they are not peaceful encroachers. They want our allegiance, not our land. Trying to negotiate peace with them would be as useless as trying to talk a demon out of possessing a mage."

"It is a lot to ask, Roland, I know," Gillum said, "but we are running out of options. I'm not content to throw away more lives to fight these Qunari, and more _will_ _die_ before the end. Will you do this for me?" Tyrus saw the youth in Gillum's eyes then, the deference he was showing toward Roland. In some ways Gillum still treated Roland like his superior.

"I'm at your disposal, Knight-Commander," Roland said with a bow. It was a game they played, the two of them, a game Tyrus had seen them play many times before. Gillum would lose his sense of superiority, and Roland would hand it right back to him with formalities he never employed under normal circumstances.

Gillum nodded a thanks and then turned toward the pathway that Dmitri had left behind. He turned back to Roland briefly and gave a stern look to Tyrus that froze his blood. Gillum had a gift for making Tyrus feel like he was trouble. "One more thing," Gillum said with a cue to Tyrus. "Take the lad with you."

"What?" muttered Tyrus, unable to stop himself. Before Roland could intervene, Tyrus took a step forward and said, "Knight-Commander, I want to fight."

"I know," Gillum said, and there was something in his eyes that told Tyrus he was telling the truth. "You have skill with a blade, Tyrus, and your skills as a Templar aren't any less. But you're young."

"I can fight, Knight-Commander," Tyrus said as he clenched his teeth together. "I have to fight."

"You'll aid Roland in his search," Gillum said, and, though the look on his face was stern, the sound of his voice was full of understanding. "The Divine will have to send out a counterattack, and there's no point in throwing away one more life to the Qunari. Our focus should be to end the war, not to feed it. This is for the best."

"But, Knight-Commander," Tyrus started.

Gillum cut him off quickly, and this time his tone was as curt as his face was stern. "That's an order, Tyrus," he said.

Tyrus knew to shut his mouth then, so he did, but he couldn't hide the glower on his face. When he felt Roland's hand on his shoulder, he exhaled, sniffed, and swallowed, and his face loosened up. "Where should we begin our search?" Roland asked.

"Start in Antiva City," Gillum uttered. "He's a Marcher, middle-aged by now, used to have red hair, and he loves his ale."

"Is there nothing else to go on?"

"I haven't seen the man in years," Gillum said. "I'm sorry, that's all I have." Gillum turned his body to face Roland and Tyrus completely before he said, "When you find him, tell him… Tell him Gill needs his help."

"I will do as you ask," Roland said with another slight bow. Before Gillum could disappear into the crowd, Roland called out to him. "Gillum," he said, and Gillum stopped to turn again. "May the Maker watch over you."

"May he watch over us all," Gillum said, and seconds later he was gone.


	3. Gillum

Everyone's eyes were on him when he entered the Circle of Magi. Gillum was used to it by now. He was the youngest Knight-Commander the ranks had ever seen, at least since anyone could remember. That fact earned him just as much respect as it did scrutiny. No one doubted the judgment of one of the Grand Clerics; they all knew his devotion to The Order had to be a great thing indeed to earn him his position. Even so, people watched him, waited for his first screw-up. And there was always a little disbelief. Most people still couldn't believe that this man who was younger than all of them could earn a position of such prestige and responsibility.

If someone had told Gillum ten years ago that he would be a Knight-Commander in the Templar Order, he would have spat in their face. He was never very religious; even now he had trouble believing in an entity that no one could see or hear or touch. He didn't necessarily believe the Maker _didn't_ exist, but he had an easier time believing things he knew were real. Men—they were real. They had real joy and real pain and real fear. They sweat real sweat and bled real blood and shed real tears, and they had the power to change their own destinies.

Contrary to the popular conception, Gillum had not been chosen to be Knight-Commander because of his devotion to the Maker. He rarely ever spoke of Andrastianism, and he supposed most people saw this as great devotion—why speak of the Maker when one can enact His will? Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn't. Gillum only did what he thought was right, what he thought needed doing, and eliminating the Qunari threat was what _needed_ doing right now. It was his devotion and determination to defending the people of Fereldan—no—the people of Thedas that earned him his position. The Grand Cleric found it exemplary of a Templar.

Gillum found it a strange switch from the life he used to lead. To say he had done it all would be an overstatement, but Gillum had seen his fair share of greed in the world. He had never done anything expressly illegal—aside from the year or so he spent with a raider gang before he found out they were trading slaves—but he'd taken part in a fair share of trickery and underhandedness and taking advantage of other people's misery in one way or another—selling secrets, looting the dead, spreading false rumors that earned him money in the long run. He was no saint and definitely _not _an exemplary Templar, but no one ever asked of his past and he never told.

He was in Dairsmuid when the Qunari occupied it, and it wasn't until then that he cared about the Qunari threat. Soldiers were killed without the chance of surrender and civilians were captured without the chance of escape. He knew then that the Qunari were after allegiance and not land. The city was like an annoyance to them. They didn't bother burning buildings or razing cultural marvels. They wanted the people, and they got them.

That was the last time he saw Richter face to face. They went their separate ways to escape the Qunari—Gillum fled to Antiva, used the confusion of the chaos to get out before the Qunari could capture him. It wasn't until a few years later—until after he had joined The Order that he knew Richter was alive. A letter from… somewhere. Which meant not only was Richter alive, but he knew what Gillum was up to and where he was. The man was always sneaking around like that. He liked to keep people on edge by surprising them in whatever way he could.

He was also very worldly—he watched people, he listened, he walked among them. Richter always liked learning about different people and different cultures. It was the reason he traveled Thedas, and if he still had that rare, intense understanding that set him apart from most, he might be of some aid against the Qunari threat.

Roland was right, of course. The likelihood that one man could stop a war was small. It was easy for one person to listen to a crowd of people all shouting the same thing, but it would be difficult for the world to listen to one man preaching for peaceful compromise—maybe even impossible. But brute force wasn't working. It was getting people killed—on both sides—and if things kept going the way they were headed, Thedas was going to be relatively empty by the time this war was finished.

But, with a single innocent act, one man could enter a room and turn the heads of every person in it. Everyone huddled inside the Circle of Magi knew who Gillum was, and all he had done was be young. That meant there was hope for Richter, even if it was a small hope.

"Divine Justinia is conferring with the Black Divine," Dmitri said when Gillum approached. "It feels almost sacrilegious to have the two of them in the same room together."

Gillum had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. Divine Justinia, the Black Divine, Grand Clerics, Magisters—they were all the same to him: politicians with different beliefs, only instead of it being about money and power like it was with lords and ladies and kings and queens it was about magic and justice. Gillum knew what to think of both of those. Justice was simply a matter of who was right and who was wrong, and that was determined by popular vote. Magic was simply a tool. Even Divine Justinia turned to it when it came to the Qunari threat.

"You don't seem particularly bothered by The Black Divine's presence here," Dmitri noted. There was a sense of intrigue in his voice—maybe this was the "slip-up" he'd been waiting for. He seemed almost delighted to point it out.

"Even with the Black Divine's armies, the Qunari have continued their push. We cannot afford to be choosy about our allies, Dmitri," Gillum replied, "unless you're content to hand half of Thedas over to the Qunari without a second thought."

"Of course not," Dmitri stammered. "I only meant that your tolerance is impressive."

"It's not a matter of tolerance," Gillum said. "It's a matter of necessity."

Dmitri looked over to the Knight-Commander's office. Most of the rooms in The Circle had been given over to high-ranking officials—the mages had been moved out of The Circle entirely to house those of more import. With so many Templars around, they were being watched carefully regardless of the fact that they weren't being housed in the tower. Dmitri watched the still door for several seconds before he said, "You may change your mind if Divine Justinia agrees to allow the magisters to join us."

Gillum scoffed at this and covered himself with a, "Maybe." It was the mage thing again. Gillum hated that about this line of work. It wasn't as bad now because everyone was more worried about the Qunari than they were about apostates or maleficarum, but everyone had this incessant paranoia about mages. Circle mages, apostate mages, blood mages, Tevinter mages—it didn't matter what kind. If it was a mage, the Templars were going to make a fuss over it.

Gillum didn't see a reason to be afraid of mages. They were like anyone else. If you give a healthy man a sword, he's not likely to use it. If you give a healthy man a sword and attack him, he's going to fight back. That was the way of it, and mages were no different. Leave a mage with his magic, and he'll go about his day. Back a mage into a corner, and he's bound to kill you for it. There were exceptions, of course. Mages who are greedy, mages who can't hold back their need for revenge, or mages who are just plain sick in the head—but those exceptions existed amongst normal men as well. Gillum had seen ordinary men kill for money. He'd seen them kill for revenge. He'd seen them kill just because they had nothing better to do. He had no cause to be more worried about mages than he had to be worried about a stranger passing him in the market. They were all people, and people could be bad… or not.

But Gillum couldn't voice his opinion here, not in front of all these people, so drew his eyebrows together and tried to look stern and pensive. He was good at that. His subordinates shied away from him for fear of admonishment while his betters assumed he was deep in thought and left him alone. Even now Dmitri glanced over at him and then turned his attention back to the Divine's room without saying a word. Gillum noticed the way Dmitri tightly gripped the sword at his hip—he was nervous. He was actually nervous about the magisters joining the battle.

"You said it yourself, Dmitri," Gillum said. "We may not have a choice. Just be ready to deal with them if the need arises."

"Of course," Dmitri replied. "I do not need to be reminded of that." Gillum caught the hint of irritation in Dmitri's voice, and it made him curl his lips in. He wasn't sure if Dmitri's annoyance was because he hated someone younger than him telling him what to do or because he was Orlaisian, but it made Gillum want to roll his eyes again. Such hostility—he didn't understand why it had to be that way. They were all allies here, and dissention in the ranks was the last thing they needed.

Dmitri and everyone around him—with the exception of Gillum—tensed when the door to the Divine's chambers opened. An older man stepped out, back hunched over and skin wrinkled like that of a roasted apple. The gout that reddened his joints wasn't enough to draw the eyes away from the scars and callouses that adorned his hands, especially the cut marks on his palms and the tips of his fingers. Despite the man's age and the wear that his body had endured, there was still life in his gray eyes.

Gillum took it upon himself to end the awkward silence as he gave the man a slight bow and muttered, "Archon Nomaran." Several other Templars followed suit shortly, Dmitri among them. Gillum could see the inelegance of Dmitri's movements, as well as several others in the room—bowing before the Black Divine was obviously something they did not take kindly to. Gillum, on the other hand, was quite accustomed to showing respect to _anyone_ who held position above him. It didn't matter what his opinion of the person was; he was going to show them respect. That brand of respect had gotten him out of trouble more than once in the past.

"Young man," a voice, thick with an Antivan accent, came from the chamber before them. Gillum couldn't see the woman behind Archon Nomaran, but he knew who stood there. Divine Justinia's voice carried throughout the vestibule, despite the fact that her intended target was only steps away—it was the natural voice of one in a position of power, Gillum supposed. The Templar recruit to whom she spoke approached her quickly and with head bowed in reverence. The Divine didn't take the time to notice; she was right down to business. "Please escort Archon Nomaran back to his chambers."

"That's not necessary, Justinia," said the old man. His voice was throaty and rough, but it too carried across the vestibule. The man may have been old, but he was still in power, and his voice reflected that. Gillum was sure his magic was a force to be reckoned with as well, elsewise the Tevinter magisters would have elected a replacement long before his age caught up to him. No doubt he commanded a certain amount of respect, being the man who abolished the laws preventing the participation of mages in office—at least in the Imperium. That was nearly twenty years ago. Gillum had been a boy then, but even he knew of the act and the uproar it had caused within the Chantry's lands. Archon Nomaran _himself_ was a force to be reckoned with.

"I can see myself to my own chambers," the Black Divine said. Gillum caught a glimpse of Dmitri's discomfort on his face out of the corner of his eye. He obviously didn't trust the Black Divine to see himself to his chambers without causing some kind of a commotion. Gillum wanted to laugh at that too. There was no way Archon Nomaran would try anything, not with so many of Divine Justinia's own Templars around, at least. He was a mage, yes, perhaps even a blood mage if his scars were any testament, but he was also a political leader. Any scuffle between the Chantry and the Imperium _now_ would almost certainly ensure a Qunari victory later.

Archon Nomaran crossed the atrium faster than Gillum would have expected. It was clear he was old in body only, and even that was not enough to slow him down. With the Archon out of the way, Gillum could see the Divine standing in her chamber doorway. Gillum felt a kinship with the woman just by looking at her. She was still young—not as young as he was, of course, but certainly younger than many if not all of the Grand Clerics. Her hair was still as black as it had likely been her whole life. Aside from the faint crow's feet at the corner of her eyes, she had no wrinkles to speak of, and her eyes were bright and lively, though hard. They had to be in her position.

Gillum knew all too well how difficult it was to command respect among those superior in age. For him, that hard look was usually enough, but she had something more to her. The way she dressed, the way she spoke, the way she stood, the way she moved—all of it was designed to solidify her presence. He tried to imagine the woman before she became the Divine, but his mind came up with nothing. This was her now. Whether she would ever be her old self again or not was not something anyone could predict. Gillum wasn't sure any of them had a right to know.

"Dmitri," Divine Justinia said, her authoritative voice never leaving her. "Gillum. I will see you both now." She turned without waiting for confirmation from either of them—why should she wait? She was the Divine, and everyone in this room was on her time.

Gillum allowed Dmitri to be the first one in the room. By the way he carried himself, Dmitri considered it to be a sort of honor—or maybe right was the proper word. It was typical for the Orlaisian Templars to consider themselves closer and more entitled to the Divine than anyone else. Gillum couldn't have cared less. The Divine was a woman before she was a leader. Whether or not she spoke and enacted the Maker's will couldn't have mattered to him any less than it did. The only "privilege" Gillum needed was the "privilege" to amass a counterattack against the Qunari.

One of the Divine's body guards shut the door behind Gillum once he entered. All of her present body guards were women—no doubt it would have been inappropriate to have men present within her offices as long as they were also her bedchambers. But the body guards were from The Seekers of Truth. Even as a Knight-Commander, Gillum knew little about their order—whether they even _allowed_ men into their ranks, for example. What he did know was that they could claim more devotion to the Divine than anyone else. Gillum could even see it in the way they reacted to Divine Justinia's movements as they moved about the room, making sure they were always in a position to defend her if need be. It was like a well-rehearsed dance; they all knew exactly where they needed to be and when they needed to be there.

"Word has reached my ear that the Qunari have taken Ayesleigh," the Divine said as she sat down at the desk that formerly belonged to the Knight-Commander here.

"What you hear is true, Your Excellency," Dmitri said a little too quickly. He was apparently eager to be the first to speak as well. As long as their goals were the same, Gillum didn't mind if Dmitri did the talking, so he kept his mouth sealed.

"How many made it back?" she asked. Gillum thought maybe he heard sadness in her voice, but, if it was there, it was gone as quickly as it came.

"Less than half of our march returned from the battle," said Dmitri.

There was another hint, Gillum thought, a flicker of sadness behind her eyes as she listened, but her expression remained hard and determined. "News that anyone could have brought me. What is it you wish to say?" she asked.

Dmitri faltered then, Gillum saw. He broke eye contact with Divine Justinia just long enough to ponder at the floorboards before he answered, "We need to mount a counterattack before those heretics come here."

"You propose I send more to lose their lives at the hands of the Qunari?" the Divine questioned, and her booming voice made even Gillum want to bow down in deference.

Dmitri could not think of an answer for her then. For all the import he felt his age had over Gillum's, he didn't have the brains or the gall to stand by his position. Gillum had counted on Dmitri's prestige to sway Divine Justinia, but if he was crumbling now, he was of no further use to Gillum.

Gillum stepped forward instead and didn't bother to bow his head as he advanced. This was war, and there was no place for formalities here. "Your Excellency, with Ayesleigh taken, our path by land to Treviso is gone. The Qunari will not stop their advance as long as they have the manpower to continue it. They will come here, and, when they do, they will decimate us. We need to send envoys to Treviso to evacuate any civilians who may still be there. In order to do that, we have to delay the Qunari long enough to buy them time. We need to send soldiers." Gillum took one deep breath before he finished, "It breaks my heart to send more to their deaths, but the citizens of Antiva will suffer if we do not."

The sadness again—Gillum was sure it was there now. The Divine cared about the people in her armies. Not the soldiers. The _people_. But she was a leader and she knew it. She had to do what was right for the people of Thedas, not just for the Chantry and the Order. Gillum could see the wheels turning in her head. She was quick with her thoughts; she only needed mere seconds to think on what he said before she responded. "Then send them, Knight-Commander Gillum. I'll send two of my Seekers to bring word to Treviso. As soon as I receive word that Treviso is completely evacuated, I will send a messenger. As soon as you receive it, you are to pull out immediately," the Divine said without missing a beat. Her voice never wavered and her gaze never faltered.

Gillum then took the time to bow. It was a more polite affirmation than anything verbal he could offer, especially in light of what he was going to say next. "You Excellency," he began, "you should take the rest of the army and flee to Antiva City."

Her response was animated as her eyes grew wide and she stood out of her chair. The chair slid several meters behind her with her momentum, but her gaze stayed on Gillum and Dmitri. Gillum kept his chin up and his eyes glued to hers. If she wanted to shoot him down, that was her right, but his opinion would remain the same no matter what she did.

"You suggest we leave Treviso _and_ Afsaana to the Qunari," Divine Justinia said.

It was not a question, but Gillum went on to elaborate. "Afsaana and Treviso are lost already, Your Excellency," Gillum said. "We simply do not have the manpower or the resources to fight off the Qunari here. We need to pull back to Antiva City and regroup, and we need to amass an armada to fight off the Qunari dreadnoughts. If we remain in Afsaana, the Qunari will catch us between their land forces and their naval forces, and the war will be over. I don't think either of us wants it to end that way."

Out of the corner of his eye, Gillum could see the confliction behind Dmitri's eyes. He knew Dmitri agreed with his plan, but he would never speak out so openly against the Divine's wishes. "That would leave Seleny open to attack as well," Dmitri said with hesitance in his voice.

"Knight-Commander Gillum is right," the Divine muttered. It was the only amount of hesitance Gillum had ever heard in her voice, and it was gone again quickly. "We will begin sending our troops on the ships, but I will _not_ leave this place until you and your detachment have returned from battle. Is that understood? _I will not_."

The only thing Gillum could manage was a grave nod. The Divine's devotion to the lives of her Templars left a heavy weight in his chest. She was going to lose more of them before the end. It broke his heart to look into her eyes and see that knowledge. She knew it. She knew it as well as he did, but she was going to stand by her crusaders no matter what.

"Your Excellency, what of Seleny?" Dmitri interjected. Gillum's lips curled in and pressed together as Dmitri said it. He was debating just for the sake of taking Divine Justinia's original stance, and _that_ irritated Gillum. This was war, not court. Pleasing the Divine did not take precedence here.

The Divine sat as her gaze shifted back to Dmitri. "Chevaliers are coming from Orlais. I will send a messenger to intercept them and divert them to Seleny for protection. A force of magisters will also be coming from Tevinter. Once they get here, I believe we will be able to mount a proper attack force against the Qunari. But those are details for another time. We must focus on what we can do now," she said. "Dmitri, I want you to send two of your most trusted Templars to Treviso. When that is done, you will begin preparing the masses to withdraw. Gillum prepare your Templars and the Templars from the Free Marches for battle. I want you marching toward Ayesleigh by dawn tomorrow. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Your Excellency," Gillum said.

When Dmitri did not say anything, the Divine repeated, "Is that understood?" She said each word slowly and carefully, the way her jaw was clenched coming through in her voice.

Dmitri hesitated, but finally said, "Yes, Your Excellency."

"Good. Dismissed. May the Maker watch over us all."

Gillum turned without a second thought, though Dmitri offered a bow first, and the two of them headed back toward the door. Dmitri was quick to be the first through the door on the way out after the Divine's bodyguard opened it. Gillum couldn't help but smirk at that—so fierce in his devotion for Divine Justinia, but so frightened in her disapproval of him. Thedas was full of ironies.

Before Gillum could reach the threshold, the Divine called out to him. "Knight-Commander Gillum," she said in her booming voice.

Gillum merely turned to meet her eyes, and, by the way the bodyguard squinted at him with bunched eyebrows, he could only assume she disliked his lack of reverence.

Divine Justinia's eyes were as hard and unwavering as they had been the whole time, but he saw the sadness, again, behind them. They peered at him from under a heavy ridge, and Gillum knew whatever order came out of her mouth his honor would compel him to obey. "Do not die out there," she said, and Gillum could feel his resolve harden as the words hit his ear. She was trusting him with this task, and he had to complete it. That was all there was to it, so he said the only words he knew would bring him back.

"You have my word," he said, and then he left.


	4. Duty

There was blood everywhere, but such was the way of war. There wasn't nearly as much as Gillum had anticipated. Compared to the defeat the Order had suffered at Ayesleigh, this was nothing. If anything, they were driving the Qunari onslaught back and getting closer to their recently lost city. Any other Templar might have seen this as an opportunity, but Gillum had learned in his years of traveling Thedas that, when things seemed too good to be true, they usually were.

The blood caked on his brow and running from the shallow wound in his shoulder was inconsequential. He had to stay vigilant. So, even with the battle still ensuing, he gathered two Templars, a Fereldan veteran and a younger recruit from Starkhaven, and set out for Ayelseigh. He didn't waste time leading them around the battlefield; there were so few Qunari fighting them that they met almost no resistance on the way to the city. When they reached it, it seemed that they would meet even less resistance.

The city loomed over them like The Black City itself. Everything was covered in a black shade. Buildings still burned. It was almost as if the Maker Himself was sending a message to the people of Thedas, reminding them of their ultimate sin. Did that make the Qunari his emissaries? Gillum didn't believe such a thing was possible. Even if it were, it would make no difference. The Blights were sometimes said to be punishment as well, but no one regarded the _Darkspawn_ as emissaries of the Maker. If they did, the end result would still be the same. Warriors would still rise up to meet the challenge and protect the people of Thedas and the threat would be defeated. Even if the Qunari were emissaries of the Maker, the Templars were still going to cut them down. There was no way around it.

It was easy to move around the city unnoticed with such small numbers. Only a few times had their progress been impeded, once by a small strike squad and another time by a solitary Qunari mage. The mage was the more formidable of the two, but both parties were easily dealt with. With the adversaries out of their way, only the two Templars Gillum brought with him slowed them down. They kept asking questions about their purpose there, what they were doing away from the battle, but he dared not voice his concerns. Not yet. They felt too real already. To voice them seemed almost the same as making them inevitable, and Gillum needed his head on straight as long as possible.

With the battle behind them and the city in front of them, the war felt more real to Gillum that it had in years. Battle was one thing; battle was everywhere in Thedas. It was a way of life. Gillum had been fighting in battles since he was barely fifteen years old, and he hadn't stopped since. He'd seen more blood and death in his lifetime than he cared to admit. Seeing an empty city was different. Familiar buildings, familiar streets, a few corpses, but an empty city. This was how it always felt after the Qunari raided a city. Everyone was either dead or converted, and there was hardly ever any evidence that anyone had lived there at all aside from the houses and belongings that were left behind in the Qunari's wake. To Gillum, _that_ was what spelled war.

He expected an ambush, out of caution if for no other reason, but the only Qunari he came across were corpses. He even came across a dead squad of Qunari who were not marked with red paint and tattoos like the rest of their brethren, and their weapons were left where they fell. Gillum didn't know much about Qunari tradition, but he knew they collected the weapons of their dead rather than the bodies. He had no idea what this could mean—if it meant anything at all. The bottom line was that there were no living Qunari in sight when less than two days ago there had been an entire army.

"I thought the Qunari had taken the city," said the Starkhaven recruit, his voice barely above a whisper.

They would run into no ambush here, Gillum was certain of it now, so he made no effort to quiet his own voice. "The Qunari are clever, aren't they?" he said.

The two Templars at his back shared quizzical looks, and then the veteran stepped forward and said, "What do you mean, Knight-Commander?"

"Look around you," Gillum said. "The city is empty. The Qunari are gone."

"What does it mean?" the recruit asked.

"Nothing. And everything," Gillum said.

"I don't follow you."

"It means what we've known all along: the city means nothing to the Qunari. They got what they came for," Gillum said. "It also means they expected us. The men our troops are fighting are only a diversion. They're meant to draw our strength away from the heart of our army." Gillum turned toward the southwest and stared at the darkening horizon. "They are heading for Treviso—Afsaana as well, I suspect."

"Surely they wouldn't sacrifice their own men to," the recruit started.

Gillum cut him off. "Qunari care nothing for their own lives. They care only for the purpose for which they were born," he said.

The veteran was not suspicious of the idea. "They'll take the cities by storm," he said. "We need to stop them."

"It's already too late for that," Gillum said as he started marching back toward the ongoing battle. "We need to withdraw immediately." One of the two Templars questioned why as they followed behind Gillum, but the words filed themselves away somewhere in the back of his mind and he didn't answer. He could only hear the Divine's words echoing in his mind. _I will _not_ leave this place until you and your detachment have returned from battle, _she had said. Once the Qunari took Treviso, Afsaana would be caught in a pincer attack by the Qunari dreadnoughts and the city would be torn apart. The Divine needed to be moved to safety before that could happen.

The battle was practically over by the time Gillum and his escorts returned from the city. The army of Templars were checking the dead, finishing off any lingering Qunari and collecting any wounded of their own. Gillum almost felt guilty at the sight of the enormous grey bodies littering the field. They had been left here to die—a diversion, nothing more. He tried to ignore his feelings. From what little he knew about how the Qunari lived, he knew that _these_ Qunari had fulfilled their purpose. They died with honor. There was no room for pity here. He didn't even bother scolding the angry youths who mistreated the bodies out of anger. He only needed stop soldiers from looting their weapons.

It took longer than Gillum wanted before the army was ready to march back, and it was well past midday by the time they left the field. The troops were elated by their victory—all but a few. Several of the older Templars could sense something was amiss. An easy victory was not always a good sign, they knew. The two Templars Gillum had brought with him let their faces betray their feelings, but they otherwise said nothing. Gillum himself was nervous and could barely contain himself well enough for the other soldiers to keep up with his quick pace.

He would have left them behind—should have so that he could warn Divine Justinia as soon as possible, but he couldn't, not when he remembered how fiercely the Divine cared for her people. They were under his charge, and he had to keep watch over him. That's what he kept telling himself. Even so, any time the wounded fell behind, he continued moving. He left them where they fell, left them to pick up their feet or die where they lay. Any who tried to help them were also left behind. He would not suffer those who were likely lost already at the risk of letting anything happen to the Divine.

Less than half of the Templars were still in Afsaana when they reached it, and even fewer mages. There weren't many wounded, but there were even less people with the knowhow to treat them. And there was no time. In the four or five days it have been since Gillum and his troops left the city, it was conceivable that the Qunari had already taken Treviso and were on their way to Afsaana. Gillum rejected the mage who tried to heal his wounds, rejected the Templar recruits who worried over him, rejected a formal greeting from another Knight-Commander, rejected everything that stepped into his path until he reached the Divine's chambers.

Even the Seeker standing guard outside the Divine's door escaped Gillum's full attention. He could see by the look in her eyes as he stormed past and the way she gripped the hilt of her sword when he slammed the door open that they were close to crossing blades. He didn't bother to respond, and the Divine, as perfect in appearance as she had been when he left, was quick to halt the Seeker's advance.

Her eyes fell over the blood on his armor as she stared. He could see the concern on her face, but she masked it well and said nothing of it. "What news?" the Divine asked. Her voice was strong and sharp, and, from her unchanging expression, Gillum would have almost sworn that she knew what news he was about to give her.

"It was a ruse, Your Excellency," Gillum voiced. "The Qunari have moved. They could have already taken Treviso. They could already be sailing here. We need to withdraw immediately." His voice came out with deep vibrations that resonated through the Divine's chambers. They were a quick reminder—a reminder that his days of adventuring youth were long gone. Even in that moment, amongst the urgency in his heart and the grave look on the Divine's face, he longed for those days to return.

"You are certain of this?" one of the Seekers questioned.

Gillum didn't have to answer. The Divine believed him—he could see it in her eyes. There was something else, though, and he knew what _that_ was too. "Your Excellency, you cannot wait until the rest of the Order evacuates. It's imperative that we get you to safety," he said.

"I cannot leave them here," Justinia said. Gillum was almost certain she would get her way with that tone, but the Seekers seemed beyond caring. One of them began gathering her things while two others started ushering her toward the door. No matter what she said or how she tried to fight them, they wouldn't back down.

The Divine and Gillum were nearly face to face when the door came bursting open and Templar entered shouting, "The Qunari are coming in from the sea! They're coming in from the east _and_ the west!"

No one was surprised, but everyone picked up the pace, including the Divine and her protests. The Seekers couldn't get her out of the door before she stopped in front of Gillum and said, "I cannot leave the Templars here!" Her words were colored by the sound of a distant explosion that made Gillum's heart jump in his chest.

Dreadnoughts.

The Seekers pulled the Divine toward the door again, but she flailed until she was free once more and said to one of her Seekers, "The rest of the Order needs to be evacuated."

"I will do it," Gillum said. "You need to go. Now."

"You're in no shape," the Divine began.

The Seeker to her right stepped forward before Justinia could finish and said, "I will oversee the retreat. Make sure the Divine reaches safety." She was gone before the Divine could object, and the Seeker on the left proceeded to drag the Divine toward the door.

Gillum put his force behind the task immediately, and, for all her kicking and screaming, she couldn't break free of their hold on her. Eventually, she gave up fighting, and Gillum and the Seeker allowed her to walk under her own power. They redirected their force toward clearing the way for the Divine instead. They had her on a ship and sailing away from the docks before the fire and thunder coming from the dreadnought reached the city.

The sky was red before Gillum could even remember what color it had been when he and his troops had returned not long ago, and he could smell the fire and smoke as the ship left port. Dreadnoughts were closing in on the peninsula from both sides, and Gillum knew then that few Templars would survive the ordeal. Even they had escaped by the skin of their teeth, it seemed. He didn't feel relief at their escape nor did he feel sorrow at the loss of his fellows. He didn't feel anything at all. Maybe this was what it meant to go into shock. Or maybe this was what it meant to lead.

The Divine, on the other hand, may as well have been weeping. She was down on all fours until well after Afsaana was out of sight muttering excerpts from the Chant of Light over and over. For the first time, Gillum saw dirt on her clothes and stray locks in her hair. She was less than perfect and she was desperate, and the whole scene made Gillum exhausted.

Gillum didn't know how long it was before the Divine stood again. It felt as though time waited until she was ready for it to proceed. When she stood, her face was hard, her eyes clear. She stared out in the direction of Afsaana, but her grief seemed almost gone. Even though it looked as though she's just been through the Void, she seemed ready to dive back into it.

"Afsaana is lost," the Divine said. "The Qunari have made a firm foothold into Antiva."

"Your Excellency," the seeker at her side said.

Justinia wouldn't hear a word of it. She held her hand up for silence and kept her eyes glued to the empty horizon. "We've lost many men on this day, and we will lose more," the Divine said. "This war is going to be a bloodbath."

"We will continue to fight, Your Excellency," Gillum said. "We must."

"Yes," Justinia said. She turned to Gillum, and he once again saw in her the formidable woman she was, but she looked older somehow. "Such is the price of freedom. And the price of love."

"Your Excellency?" the seeker said.

"We must protect the freedom of the peoples of Thedas, and we must not let our love for the Maker falter," Justinia said. She turned to the other Templars standing on deck, and they all stood up a little straighter. "We will continue to fight. We will push the Qunari from our lands and win back the freedom that rightfully belongs to the faithful. And, by the Maker's will, we will be victorious at His side or on the field of battle." Cheers erupted from the soldiers around her, and Gillum found himself exhaling a long-held breath.

The Divine left the men and women around her to their exuberance and approached Gillum, her seeker following behind her. She beckoned him with a hand and he followed her below deck into a drab room filled with a few small boxes of the Divine's things. The room itself wasn't appropriate for a woman of the Divine's station, but it had a bed. For Justinia, that seemed to be enough. She paid no mind to the filthy rags on the mattress; she sat down and batted her seeker away when she attempted to clean up her hair and face. She waved a hand toward the door, and the seeker left with little more than a bow.

The Divine began picking through papers at her bedside and said, "We cannot beat back the Qunari forces in our current state."

"No, Your Excellency," Gillum said.

"It was not a question," the Divine said. She waved her hands at Gillum and said, "Don't just stand there. You must have an opinion on the situation."

"Your Excellency, I—"

"Knight-Commander Gillum," Justinia said, and her voice raised a few decibels. "If I wanted to have formalities thrown about all evening, I would be back in Val Royeaux attending one of the nobles' many illustrious banquets and sipping tea over a fountain of flatteries and lies. What I need from you is truth. Strategies. Opinions. Are you not up to the task?"

Gillum felt like a child under the Divine's gaze. He was sweating by the time he remembered to answer. "We need to pull our forces back and regroup," he said. "If we keep throwing our armies at the Qunari, we'll lose more than we save."

"Pull our armies back," the Divine echoed as she gazed down at a document in her hand. "You mean to pull out of Antiva altogether."

"Yes," Gillum said. "Antiva is lost. We cannot keep defending it with our forces so divided. We put Nevarra at risk if we try."

"And the people?"

"We can send messengers to order evacuation," Gillum said, "but we will not be able to save them all." When Justinia did not say anything in response, Gillum said, "I'm sorry."

"Keep your apologies," the Divine shouted. "They're of no use to me. If you truly believe withdrawing to be the best course of action, then it must be done. In the meantime, there are other courses of action we must take."

"Your Excellency?"

"Archon Nomaran left for Tevinter the day you left for battle," Justinia said. "And he took many of his troops with him."

"He abandoned us?"

"Threatened us, more like," Justinia said. "There was an incident near the Tevinter border in Nevarra."

"An incident, Your Excellency," Gillum said.

"Something to do with demons or maleficarum," she said. "We haven't had as many since the war with the Qunari started." Gillum wasn't sure he agreed. Most of the Templars were off fighting in the war. It could be that there weren't as many or it could be that there weren't enough Templars to keep rogue mages in check. On the one hand, fewer Templars meant less of a reason for mages to revolt. On the other hand, it also meant more opportunities for mages to seize power. Like ordinary men, however, mages could go either way.

"Some Templars caught wind of this incident," the Divine continued. "They went to investigate. Unfortunately, so too did some Tevinter mages, a magister among them. The two parties arrived at the site of the incident at roughly the same time. I think you can imagine what happened there."

Gillum sighed. "I suppose they disagreed on what should be done about the situation. Violently," he said.

"Our Templars did not take kindly to Tevinter mages investigating magicks in Chantry lands. They attacked the mages and killed the magister, who happened to be a personal friend of the Archon," Justinia said. "Now we have two parties hunting for an apostate in Chantry lands and butting heads every step of the way. The Archon demanded I order the investigation off."

"Is that your plan, Your Excellency?"

The Divine raised a brow. "You think I should allow an apostate, possibly a maleficarum, to roam free, Knight-Commander," Justinia asked.

"One apostate," Gillum said, "versus thousands of Qunari. I think we need to focus on the real threat."

"Interesting," Justinia said. "Archon Nomaran said the same thing."

"Was he wrong, Your Excellency?"

Justinia stood with a heavy sigh. "That is why I need you, Gillum," she said. "I cannot tell the Templars to cease their search for this apostate; it is part of their holy duties. But we cannot face the Qunari without aid from Tevinter. I need for you to travel with me to barter an alliance with Archon Nomaran."

"I'm no peacemaker, Your Excellency," Gillum said, "nor am I a negotiator."

"You are pragmatic," the Divine said, "and we need to barter with the Archon on pragmatic terms. If we look at this situation through religious eyes, we are forced to condemn the Tevinters on principle. If I approach Archon Nomaran in my own right, he will look down on me just as the north looked down on Andraste when she failed to bring them down with her great army. He will see me as nothing more than a weak woman leading a weak people."

"With all due respect, Your Excellency, how would bringing me along change any of this?"

"He needs to see that there are powerful leaders beyond the Chantry," Justinia said.

"I am a Templar, Your Excellency. Everything I do is for the Chantry."

"You're a soldier, Gillum," the Divine said. "You haven't followed the Chantry since you joined us."

"I am fully devoted to the Chantry, Your Excellency," Gillum started.

"You tolerate the Chantry, Serrah. I could not have become Divine if I did not know how to read people," Justinia said. "You never listen to the Chant, you never accept blessings from the mothers, and you have remained suspiciously neutral about mages on various occasions. But I am not here to debate the inappropriateness of your behavior as a Templar. These are the reasons why I need you to help present our cause to the Archon. And the reasons why I need your counsel."

"Counsel! Your Excellency, I—"

"I cannot accept no for an answer, Gillum," Justinia said. "Your devotion to the Chantry notwithstanding, if you have any desire to end this conflict with the Qunari, you will do your duty."

"Your Excellency, my devotion to the Chantry notwithstanding," Gillum said with a sigh. He kneeled in front of Divine Justinia and said, "If it becomes known you are taking counsel… I am concerned of the consequences this course of action will have."

"And I am concerned of the consequences should Tevinter choose to declare war on us while we are busy fighting the Qunari," Justinia said. She closed her eyes and exhaled. "And so we burned. We raised nations, we waged wars. We dreamed up false gods, great demons who could cross the Veil into the waking world, turned our devotion upon them, and forgot you."

Gillum got to his feet and gripped the hilt of his sword until his knuckles were white. "I _tolerate_ the Chantry," he said. "I never listen to Chant of Light. Your Excellency."

"Threnodies 1:8," the Divine said. "It speaks of the Tevinter mages and the Black City, of the origins of the Darkspawn."

"And you think if this war goes on too long another monstrosity like the Darkspawn will be borne," Gillum asked. He had to stop himself from scoffing.

"I do not think it takes devastation as terrible as the Blights to punish us. If we enter war with Tevinter on top of the Qunari, the world will be torn apart," Justinia said. "_That_ devastation will be its own punishment. If we are to prevent that from happening, we must all play our parts."

"I do not believe the Maker tugs my strings, Your Excellency. Not everyone has a part to play," Gillum said.

"But you do believe _you_ have a part to play, elsewise you would not have joined the Templars," the Divine said. "So play it. Do your duty or live knowing that evil was done because you did nothing. You are dismissed."

"Your Excellency," Gillum started.

"I said you are dismissed," Justinia said.

Gillum sucked in a breath and gave the slightest bow before storming from the room.


	5. Blood of My Blood

Maeve scratched at the wooden counter while she waited for the soup to boil. Heating the soup would be a thousand times simpler if only she could use her magic, but someone was watching, waiting. She could feel it. She knew the moment she used any sliver of magic, someone somewhere would know and the Templars would be there to carry her away, never to walk Thedas as a free mage again. So she scratched until she created her own groove in the countertop and her skin separated from her nail so that her finger bled.

"Maeve, are you paying attention to the stove," Massimo asked.

When Maeve saw Massimo approach, she withdrew her hands from the table and flinched as a splinter wove its way into her finger. The splinter was a great thing, visible to the eye and large enough to draw blood. Maeve reached down to pull it out before Massimo could notice, but he saw the blood after he set down his tray. He pulled her hands up by the wrists and clutched her fingers for his appraisal. Every single one had a cut or blood under the fingernail or little splinters here and there.

"Maeve, I told you to stop this," Massimo said. "You are such a lovely girl, but your dear hands…"

Maeve stole her hands away and hid them behind her back. "It doesn't hurt," she said. "It will heal."

Massimo stared at Maeve through the corners of his eyes while he cleaned the plates in the sink. "You worry me, girl," he said. "What are you always so nervous about?"

"I'm not nervous," Maeve said. She reached for the ladle to stir the soup. "I just get… antsy. Anyway, it will _heal._ How is Valeria?"

"She is quite well," Massimo said. "The baby is due any day now."

"I bet you're excited to be a father."

Massimo laughed. "What makes you say that?"

"You're smiling, for one," Maeve said. "And you certainly seem to enjoy fathering me."

"If I leave you to your own, you'll lose your fingers somewhere."

"See? That right there," Maeve said.

Massimo chuckled before he said, "What?"

"You care too much about every little thing. You're always worrying over me."

"Is that so strange? Did your own father not show you such affections?"

Maeve snorted. "Everything was win or die to my father," she said. "There was never time for affection."

"I see," Massimo said. "And yet that too is its own affection. Thedas is a cruel world. Especially now."

"You mean with the Qunari," Maeve said. She stirred the soup once more and turned to face Massimo. He was scrubbing a dish so hard Maeve almost thought he would scrub a hole right through it, but he rinsed it a few seconds later and moved onto the next one.

"Things are starting to slow down," Massimo said. "Why don't you go into town and enjoy yourself? And pick up some Elfroot oil on your way back for Valeria."

Maeve exhaled and took her leave.

Massimo always did that to her when she brought up the Qunari. He skirted around the issue, changed the subject, or pretended he hadn't heard her at all. It had only been a few weeks since a passerby brought news of the Qunari's most recent victory over Afsaana and Treviso. Even then Massimo didn't want to talk about it. He served a round of free drinks to everyone in the tavern and kept about his business. He didn't want to discuss the topic the next day. Or the day after that. Or even the day after that. It was like the Qunari didn't even exist.

Many of the other folk in Seleny were the same way. Those that still remained in the town pretended like nothing was going on. Most of the folk that spoke about the Qunari advances were long gone from this place, and any of the others were lingering outsiders or people who kept to themselves to begin with. The Qunari were steadily approaching their doorstep, yet no one seemed to care.

The town felt barren today—more so than usual ever since half of the townsfolk left. Very few people were walking the streets. Only the vendors, the beggars, and the lunatics remained in their usual places. Almost everyone else was gathered at the north end of town staring into the distance and gossiping under their breath. Their eyes were on the horizon, but Maeve couldn't see past the many bodies clustered together. She stood at the back and listened, pulling the skin of her left index finger apart from the nail with brusque tugs.

"It is the dry season. It hasn't rained in days."

"The fires always get bad this time of year. I hope it doesn't get out of control."

"We should brush burn just in case. The last thing we need is Seleny burning down."

"The fire will never reach here, you idiot. The wind will send it to the east."

Fire. They were talking about a fire, about smoke they could see on the horizon. Maeve crouched down and wormed her way through the crowd. More than a few people moaned and cursed, but most were too focused on their gossip to take two looks at her. One heavyset woman gave Maeve a particularly icy glare when she nudged her aside with her boney elbow. When she finally got to the front, she could see the small trails of smoke in the distance. They were leagues and leagues away from them, but they were visible—and very much black.

"I hope we get enough rain to get through the season. Food is scarce enough as it is right now."

"Fires burn for days. It will spread where it wants to."

"I always imagined that's what the blight would look like, when I was small."

Maeve couldn't help but snort at what she was hearing. She picked at her finger absentmindedly until blood ran down her hand and dripped to the ground from her wrist.

"The Qunari," someone said.

Maeve turned her head and realized she was being spoken to when her eyes met a familiar face. One of the regulars from the tavern, the one she initially thought looked like a Crow, was standing beside her, resting a hand on the hilt of a dagger at his belt. He glanced at the blood dribbling from her hand and then looked back to the black smoke crawling across the horizon.

"They're all idiots," Maeve said.

"They're in denial," he said. "They don't want to admit that the Qunari are coming. They want to believe things here are peaceful." The man turned from the crowd and began walking back into town.

Maeve wrapped her finger in her shirt sleeve and followed behind him. "My father always said that only cowards run away from the truth."

"Your father sounds like a smart man. Still, accepting the coming danger and arming themselves with pitchforks and torches against a legion of Qunari isn't going to save these people," the man said.

"They should fight," Maeve said, "if they have any integrity."

The man stopped and laughed. "Would you fight, girl? Would you stand against and army of Qunari even if it meant certain death?"

"If I had reason enough to stay where I was, I would."

"And don't you," he asked. "If you don't have any reason to stay, why are you still here?"

"I wouldn't still be here if I didn't have a reason to stay," Maeve said. "I'm not an idiot."

"Oh? Then you _do_ intend to fight the Qunari?"

Maeve couldn't help but blush. "If I have to."

The man laughed again as he pulled some kind of herb out of his pocket and began chewing on it. He sat down on a nearby stone. "A little mageling and an entire host of Qunari battling it to the death—there's something I'd like to see," he said.

"Sometimes we have to fight in order to get what we want or keep what we have."

"Is that something else your father said?"

"No, it's," Maeve started. Her heart skipped a beat and her sleeve loosened from around her finger. Blood resumed dripping onto the dirt below her. "Why did you call me a mage?"

"Because that's what you are, little bird," the man said. He smacked around the plant in his mouth a few times. "I've seen mageling hands before. You can't hide those blisters and scars from someone who knows what they mean."

"I'm not a mage," Maeve said.

The man sneered. "Relax. Your secret's safe with me, little bird."

"Stop calling me that."

"Maeve, then," the man said. "Massimo thinks highly of you. I wonder what he'd think if he knew."

"Don't," Maeve pleaded. "He doesn't need to know."

"Right you are. Information like that is more trouble than it's worth. Besides, we may need your talents when the time comes. And it will come; you have my word on that."

"You really aren't going to tell him," Maeve asked.

"That's what I just said, isn't it? I don't give a rat's ass about apostates. As far as I'm concerned, the Qunari are the only ones we need to worry about."

Maeve exhaled and rubbed her fingers together. She studied the man's grey hairs and twin daggers for a few seconds before stepping toward him. "Is that why you're here, then? To fight off the Qunari?"

"You must be mad, girl," the man said with a laugh. "I'm good, but even I can't fight off a legion of Qunari by myself."

"Then why are you here? Integrity?"

"There is no such thing, Maeve, and you'd do well to remember that," he said. "People will do anything to protect their own interests. Anything at all. Surely your father taught you that."

"Then what are your interests?"

"That's easy. I don't have any."

"Then you have no reason to be here."

"Maybe, maybe not."

"You say people protect their own interests. You have none, and yet you're still here in Seleny and it seems you plan to fight the Qunari when they come. Why else would you do that if not for integrity?"

"If this is what your father raised you to believe, then maybe he wasn't as smart as I thought he was," the man said.

"He wasn't," Maeve said. "My father taught me what I needed to know: People are selfish. They'll steal and they'll kill. They'll do whatever it takes to get what they want." Maeve took a quick look around her before she started snapping her fingers against each other. Little flames erupted like sparks from the friction.

The man didn't give the flames a second glance and waited for Maeve to continue.

"Still, my father always wanted to believe in the good in people," she said. "Believe you me; he died for it."

"Do you believe in the good in people Maeve?"

Maeve pondered the question by cradling a small fire in the palm of her hand. Her blisters became tender and moist. The wounds at the tips of her fingers bled. One drop. One drop was all she needed, and the embers around her fingers turned to green flames in her palms. For the first time since Maeve left the comfort of her home, she felt like she could breathe.

"No," Maeve said. "A man might risk his life to protect his child from the evils of this world; the same man might sacrifice his child to save himself."

Maeve allowed the green flames to linger in her hands. No one was watching. The only one nearby was the stranger sitting on the stone before her. She felt strangely comfortable around him. He was different than others. He wasn't watching; he was seeing. He was feeling. He didn't possess the gift, but it seemed as if he knew what it was like to be a mage. He knew what it was to be feared and hated, to be afraid and to hate, to want the world to know nothing about him and yet to know everything about the world. For one small moment, Maeve felt as if she was staring into a mirror.

The illusion was broken when the man spoke. "As long as you understand that, even a mageling like you can make it far in this world," he said.

Maeve smiled and said, "I know. My father never had to tell me that. I've always known."

Maeve heard shouting, and, just like that, the flames disappeared from her hands and the smile dropped from her face. The discomfort returned and she felt cold. The stranger looked as relaxed as ever, but she could tell from the look in his eyes that he was more alert. His gaze followed someone behind Maeve, so she turned to search for whatever it was that gripped his attention.

Maeve caught sight of the man quickly. He was another one of Massimo's regular customers, a heavyset man with less hair than on his name-day. His large strides made it look like he was trotting rather than running, and his belly bounced and jiggled with each step that landed. He gripped the hilt of the axe at his side as if it were second nature.

Maeve felt the panic in her chest first. What if the Qunari had come?

The stranger was suddenly beside Maeve and gripping her hand with a leather glove that snuffed out her emerging flames before she even knew she had summoned them. "You'd be wise to stay your hand until you've assessed the danger," he said. "What's with all the shouting, man," the stranger yelled.

"It's Massimo's wife," he said. "She's gone into labor. We need a doctor."

The stranger's hand left Maeve's as he approached the heavyset man and said, "The doctors have all gone. You'll not find one left here. What you need is to calm down."

"What do you suggest?"

"I'll help," the stranger said. "I'm no doctor, but I'll do what I can."

Massimo was in a panic when they got back to the inn, petting Valeria's hand continuously as she lay on the bed concentrating on breathing. If possible, Massimo had more sweat caked on his brow than she did. It was the first time Maeve had ever seen him flustered by anything.

"Massimo," the stranger said upon entering the room. He had to repeat himself before Massimo took notice of him. "If you want to help your wife, you need to calm down. Go get some washrags and a bucket of water. Maeve, you know which room is mine?" Maeve nodded. "There's a jar of herbs on my bed stand. Bring it to me."

Maeve did as she bid and went down to the second level. The stranger's room was empty save for a few spare belongings—an extra set of clothing, some poultices, and a red-painted pole-weapon leaning against the wall behind the bed. The jar of herbs was easy for Maeve to spot amongst so few items. She took the jar back to the man was quickly as her feet would carry her. When she got there, the stranger took a single leaf out of the jar and slipped it between Valena's lips.

"Chew," he said. "It will ease the pain."

"What is it," Maeve asked.

"Leaves of Felicidus Aria, from the Silent Plains," the stranger responded. "Very strong and very expensive. In the right hands, it can be used as either medicine or poison."

By that time, Massimo had returned from downstairs with a few rags and the water. "Keep her cool," the stranger said. "All we can do for Valena right now is make her comfortable."

Massimo took charge at the task without saying a word, and, for the hours that followed, he and Maeve switched places. The stranger gave Valena a new leaf to chew every once in awhile, occasionally taking one for himself. Meanwhile, Valena went back and forth between bouts of concentrated breathing and closing her eyes and trying to relax.

It was a long labor. Nearly fifteen hours passed before Valena showed any signs of the birth being near. Until then, Maeve had ensured the tavern was properly closed up and taken a few chances to doze when she wasn't at Valena's side in place of Massimo. Even when she was at Valena's side, Massimo stayed in the room and watched, dozing off only one time.

Everyone was wide awake once the contractions were close enough together. By then the stranger's herbs were no longing having as much of an effect on Valena's pain, and her cries grew more hectic. Massimo refused to leave Valena's side at this point. Maeve was left only to watch from the corner of the room as the stranger moved to a position to catch the baby. It took until that moment for Maeve to realize there was nothing else she could do. She had blood trickling from under her fingernails in seconds.

"I see the head," the stranger said a lifetime later. Everything passed more quickly from there. Massimo uttered words to Valena that Maeve didn't care to hear. The stranger's periodic updates passed in one ear and out the other. She took notice only of the birth fluid and blood that began to soak the bed.

It seemed the stranger was constantly telling Valena that it was "just a little more." Maeve didn't believe it until she spotted the baby in front of the stranger—its little arms and hands, the umbilical cord attached to its belly, its chubby thighs—no, _his_. It was definitely a boy, Maeve could see now.

"You're almost there, Valena," the stranger said over Valena's grunts and sighs.

"Why isn't he crying," Massimo asked.

The blood was soaked through to the mattress by then, and Maeve didn't hesitate when the stranger called her over to help him. He handed the baby to her outright and started scrambling to untangle the umbilical cord from around the child's neck. Maeve had blood all over her hands within seconds, and the stench started to fill her nose.

The stranger had the cord untangled in less than a minute, but the child still wasn't crying. Though the child was out of the birth canal, Valena was still bleeding as well. The stranger cut the umbilical cord immediately and handed the child to Massimo who was already muttering prayers under his breath. While Massimo tended to the baby, the stranger shoved Maeve out of the way and tried to stop Valena's bleeding. The only thing Maeve could seem to hear was Massimo sobbing. All she could see was the blood all over the bed, on the baby, on the floor, on the stranger's hands, on her own.

She had to leave the room, but she could still smell it, still hear Massimo's cries.

He was going to lose his wife and child all in one day.

It hurt Maeve to think about it, but she couldn't help believing it was true. He was going to lose his wife and his son and there was nothing Maeve could do to help, nothing she could do to save them. They would both die in the next room, and Maeve would still be standing there with her hands covered in blood and there was nothing she could do to stop any of it.

The smell of the blood made her sick and she felt hot. She barely held the contents of her stomach in long enough to make it downstairs and outside. She retched right outside the door and immediately felt a little better. The cool night air on her skin helped calm her nerves a bit, but her hands still smelled, the blood on them still wet and sticky, and Massimo's voice carried the distance from the open window on the third floor out to front door of his tavern. No longer in a state of panic, no longer sick to her stomach, but Maeve still felt an intense dread. She tried making herself feel less guilty, tried reminding herself that there was nothing else she could hope to do.

But maybe there was something she could do after all. The sight of the blood on her hands was what made her realize that. If she could save even one of them, that would do a lot, and she didn't need anything but what she already had with her—her magic and the blood on her hands. It wasn't enough to save an adult, but for a very small person…

She could do it.

She didn't have to say the words. She never had to anymore. Once mages reached a certain level of skill, they didn't need their voices to cast spells. Maeve had reached that level many years ago, which only made being a mage that much harder. She could sometimes cast spells accidentally if she didn't keep control. This time, however, Maeve had complete control. It was the only way she could cast a spell so powerful—so powerful, in fact, that it took a portion of her own life to even bring it to fruition.

She felt hot again. It was the first time Maeve had ever attempted to bring someone back from the dead. Necromancy, they called it, but it didn't feel as terrible as the word made it sound. It felt like she was holding a great power in her hands, the life force of another being. She could choose to be its embracer or its executioner. Never did Maeve feel that she had more control over anything than she did in that moment.

She was the very essence of power. In that instance, nothing else mattered to her, not the fact that she was a mage, an apostate—indeed a maleficarum at that—not her fears for the Qunari or the Templars, not the cold early-morning air creating goose bumps on her arms, not the stench of the blood soaking her hands, not the sound of Massimo's cries from the third floor of his tavern. Power was the only thing that mattered to her.

Power and, in the distance, the sound of a baby crying.


	6. Crossing

Tyrus had never been to such a large city before. Denerim had seemed rather large the one time he visited it, but almost any city was compared to the little hamlet known as Lothering where he spent most of his childhood. Denerim was full of more people than Tyrus could fathom. When he was very small, he didn't think all of Thedas could fit the number of people that lived in Denerim. The world was very small to him then, only as much as he could envision with what he now knew to be his limited imagination. He knew better now, knew the world was more vast than most people could dare to imagine without first seeing it for themselves.

Even so, Antiva City was the largest city he had ever seen. It was easily three times the size of Denerim and twice as wealthy. There were as many street rats as nobles, to be sure, but many of the buildings were fancier even than the most elaborate mansions in Denerim. The smell was completely different, too. Denerim's streets smelled mostly of garbage, dog shit, and rot, but Antiva City had the smell of industry. He smelled smokestacks and leather and just a trace of the bitter smell of Deathroot, which was utilized in abundance in this area. The smell wasn't exactly pleasant, but it spoke a difference of eons between Fereldan and Antiva. If Antiva City was as glorious as this, Tyrus couldn't even imagine at the splendor of Val Royeaux, said to be the greatest city in all of Thedas.

Tyrus learned to hate the size of the city quickly. It was impossible to find anyone in this city. No matter how many people he and Roland asked, it seemed no one knew anything of this Richter. Not only did they not recognize his name, but they all claimed that no Marchers had passed through here in quite a while. It made perfect sense, though. After all, why would any Marchers come north now of all times when the grey giants were beating down Antiva's doors?

Roland always answered Tyrus' questions with too much good sense. "If this Richter likes trouble as much as the Knight-Commander suggested, then he may be the only Marcher that would come north at such a time," Roland said.

"Even if that's true, how are we supposed to find him in a city full of so many people," Tyrus asked.

"With so few Marchers passing through here, it should be relatively easy to find him. He'll be the only one of his kind."

"Then why haven't we found him yet?"

"Probably because he's not in this city."

"And if he is in this city and we've missed him?"

"You ask a great deal of questions, Tyrus," Roland said, "and none of them truly important. You should be focusing on how to fulfill the Knight-Commander's request rather than brooding because you didn't get to stay behind for the battle."

"I'm not brooding," Tyrus said.

"And my name isn't Roland."

The only thing worse than losing an argument against a superior was knowing that he was right. Tyrus _was_ brooding. He couldn't understand why the Knight-Commander would send him on this venture, clearly a farce. He doubted such a man named Richter even existed. One man to end a war that's been going on for the greater part of a century? The only thing more ridiculous than that would be suggesting that a single Grey Warden could change the tide of a Blight.

They moved on from the city once Roland was convinced they would not find Richter there, and Tyrus was all too glad to be away from it. The whores never failed to wait around every corner. Apparently they had a weakness for men in uniform. Roland didn't seem surprised or bothered by it in the least. More questions. More answers.

"You're young," Roland explained. "Templar recruits like yourself have yet to take their vows. That makes them prime targets for these… entertainers."

"You mean whores. Why would recruits even deign to—"

"You'll understand one day. Perhaps when you become a full-fledged Templar Knight. Perhaps sooner. Perhaps after. You will feel the temptations of the body. Perhaps when you're less preoccupied with bloodshed."

It wasn't the answer Tyrus wanted to hear. The war was his only concern, and that was how it should be. He didn't need any distractions from his duty. Much like the distraction that kept them looking for a man that might not even exist.

Not coincidentally, Roland's decision to leave Antiva fell on the same day they learned that the army was pulling back and the Divine and her Templars were on their way from Afsaana. The news came from Antivan criers throughout the city and sounded benign—they were very matter-of-factly about the news, as if the Divine and her Templars were taking a vacation and traveling across Thedas. Tyrus questioned this too. For once, Roland came at him with an answer he could fully agree with: the Antivan's had been suffering from the war for so long that, for many of them, it was just old news.

Roland and Tyrus knew the truth: if the Divine and her Templar Order were pulling back, the Qunari had overrun them. They were moving inland fast and were just a boat ride away from taking Antiva City. Once they did that, Antiva was as good as theirs. It would mean that the war would drag on far longer than anyone had originally anticipated. Or it would mean the beginning of the end.

"We should stay and bolster the defense," Tyrus suggested.

"No," Roland replied.

"The Qunari are right on our doorstep."

"They've been on our doorstep for a long time."

"The Divine will need every available Templar to stop this."

"Do not dare to assume the Divine's campaign," Roland said. "Who appoints the Knight-Commanders?"

"The Grand Clerics," Tyrus said.

"And who guides the Grand Clerics?"

Tyrus didn't dare open his mouth again. He knew it was far better to admit his defeat now than walk right into Roland's reprimands. "I understand. It's our duty to accomplish the task set on us by Knight-Commander Gillum."

"Very good," Roland said. "I've booked us passage on a ship going upriver."

"Upriver?"

"To Seleny. It's a small town, though perhaps not as small as your Lothering. I doubt we'll find anything there, but it's the quickest route to the Free Marches."

"So we're going to the Free Marches now," Tyrus said.

"You were complaining before about looking for a Marcher outside of the Free Marches," Roland said. "Now you're complaining about looking for him in his homeland?"

"It's not that," Tyrus said, not eager to lose another debate against Roland. "It's just that you seemed so certain of Knight-Commander Gillum's insistence that he would be nearby."

"That's true," Roland said. "But we've had no luck in Antiva City, and it's too dangerous to search the other port cities while the Qunari rule Rialto Bay. If we find no trace of him in Seleny, we can look for leads in the Free Marches. There's a good chance someone there knows him, and mayhaps they'll know his whereabouts as well."

"I still don't understand how one man can stop a tide of Qunari from sweeping across Thedas."

"I know. It's difficult to believe. Yet many a great men have turned the tide in impossible battles. We have our slayers of the Archdemons, such as the hero Garahel. The great Lord Seeker of the Inquisition instigated the Nevarran Accord, and without him the Templar Order would not be what it is today. We must not ever forget, of course, Andraste herself."

"And yet none of these individuals worked alone," Tyrus said. "Garahel had the other Grey Wardens at his back. The original Lord Seeker, whoever he was, had an entire army behind him. Even Andraste had Shartan and the elven slaves to stand against the Imperium. What does this one man have that we haven't already thrown against the Qunari?"

"You're right," Roland said. "But each of these individuals started something. If the armies at their backs tell us anything, they tell us that these individuals were great leaders. Men trusted them. Men followed them. Knight-Commander Gillum said it might be time for diplomacy. This 'Richter' may not have the strength to beat back the Qunari forces, but perhaps he will light the spark that leads to the resolution of this conflict."

"That's asking to take a lot on faith," Tyrus said.

"Sometimes faith is the only thing an idea needs for it to succeed."

Tyrus wasn't sure he agreed. Ideas required conviction. Action. Ideas could not defend themselves or fight in grand battles. By itself, an idea was nothing. The idea of magic serving man and not ruling over him could not stand by itself. Isn't that why the Templar Order existed? The Templars defended that idea, fought for that idea. Without the Templars, that idea would be nothing more than a wistful dream. Faith wasn't going to stop the Qunari advance. Only action would do that, and what action could this Richter employ other than what had already been done?

Everything the people of Antiva did supported Roland's belief in faith, though. Tyrus imagined many citizens would be taking the same boat they were, fleeing for their lives, taking the only _action_ available to them to save themselves, but the boat was relatively empty. Very few people were fleeing the approaching danger. If Roland's words were true, then the Antivan's must have thought their belief would save them. Tyrus knew better. If anyone could save them, it was the Templars, and they should be praying for their success if they're going to pray for anything at all.

The people in Seleny were no different. The ferryman spread the news of the Templar's retreat from Afsaana to the citizens still living there, but no one seemed to bat an eye. The news spread fast enough through such a small town and the Qunari advance was some of the only gossip Tyrus heard, but that was just it. It was _gossip_, nothing more. Even talking about matters of life and death, people continued about their daily lives as if the town was untouchable. These people needed to retreat. They _needed_ to, but it quickly became clear that, until the danger was directly on their doorstep, they weren't going to.

Tyrus couldn't help but wonder if it would have been so different in Lothering. Lothering was a small community, so disconnected from the concerns of Fereldan, it seemed. Whenever there was a dispute between two Banns or dissent amongst the Teyrns, Lothering stayed blissfully unattached. So long as the community remained its own, perhaps that was for the best. But if an army was steadily approaching their doorstep, would they run?

As Tyrus watched the young woman at the tavern cradle a young babe, he thought not. People were too wrapped up in their own concerns to care about the concerns of the world. Either that or the concerns of the world were so pressing that they focused on the only things they could control. The babe didn't look like hers; he had the olive skin color of an Antivan, but she was as dark as any Nevarran. She was also far too thin and healthy to have just carried a child. Also, she seemed far too young. Still, she looked into the babe's eyes like it was the only thing in the world that mattered. That babe's happiness was the only thing in the world she had control over right now, so she couldn't worry about the Qunari, Tyrus guessed. Couldn't or wouldn't.

She approached Tyrus and Roland with the babe in her arms and said, "Can I get the two of you anything? We have water and ale. You'll have to wait until my hands are free if you want food. I'm too busy for that right now."

"Taking care of a little one is hard work," Roland said to her. "I'm told it gets easier with time. You may even find yourself wanting another. My mother loved it so much I myself have six siblings."

"He's not mine," the girl said. "I'm the only one who can take care of him right now, though."

"And the only one to tend the patrons as well? Is the owner not around?" Roland asked.

"Grieving," the girl said. "The boy's mother died on the birthing bed. He doesn't even have a name yet."

"It grieves me to hear that," Roland said. "You've fallen on hard times."

"It'll be even harder times if I don't get everyone their drinks. What do you want?"

"Just water," Roland said. "Take your time. We're here for information, so we're in no rush."

"Water, coming right up," she said.

"She seems nervous," Tyrus said.

"Strained," Roland said. "Children have a way of doing that."

"Your presence here isn't helping either," one of the patrons said. "Having Templars around when war is on the horizon makes it feel a little too close."

"It gets closer every day," Roland said. "You sound like a Marcher."

"We're not that far from the border," the man said.

"You might be able to help us. We're looking for someone. A Marcher by the name of Richter."

"Richter," the man said, as if trying it on for size. "Name doesn't sound familiar. Is he famous?"

"That's beyond my knowledge," Roland said. "If you don't know who he is, then I waste my time saying any more."

The girl returned a few seconds later with her arms free of the babe and her hands full of drinks. The babe's cries seemed to echo louder the further away the girl got from the crib where she left him. The louder it got the more she cringed. It was enough to make Tyrus wonder if his initial impression about her feelings toward the babe were really true or not.

"I don't think anyone by that name has passed through here," the girl said. "But I haven't been here for very long, so I'm not sure. Massimo might be able to tell you, but he hasn't come downstairs since… Well. I don't think he'll see anyone." The girl took a look around the tavern and sighed then. She sat down next to the Marcher and started picking at her fingers. Eventually, the babe's cries stopped and a cloud of relief passed over what few people were in the tavern.

"I think he's afraid to see his son," the girl said.

"In his mind, his son killed his wife," the Marcher said. "He'll need time."

"How much time?" the girl asked. "Is that boy going to have to grow up without a father? "

"He gets to taste life," the Marcher said. "He almost didn't. Just wait. When the time comes, Massimo will step forward and do what's necessary."

"I hope you're right, but I just don't know."

Tyrus was tired of listening to them. More talk about anything _but _the Qunari. He agreed with the Marcher. Whoever this man was probably just needed time. As long as they stayed here, though, that was time that they couldn't afford to give. Was this evasive attitude just an Antivan thing, or was Tyrus too determined for his own good?

"There doesn't seem to be a Marcher here," Tyrus whispered to Roland. "Can we not move on?"

"I would stay and speak to this Massimo," Roland said. "Tavern masters are the best source of information. Besides, I should see if I can't find some way to ease his grief."

"And if he won't see you?"

"Then I will wait," Roland said. He looked to the girl. "Excuse me, miss, is there a room available for rent?"

The girl stood quickly and rubbed her weary eyes. "A room?" she said. "A room. Yes, of course. We have plenty of rooms available. The rate is one silver a night."

"So low-priced," Roland said.

"We haven't been getting much business lately," the girl said. "Massimo has been offering discounted prices to everyone that passes through here, especially since so many are refugees."

"That is kind of him indeed," Roland said, "but we are no refugees. We will offer three silvers a night for each bed."

"That's six silvers a night," the girl said. "Are you sure?"

"Please," Roland said with a smile. "It is times like these that we must all learn to be generous with one another."

"I'll give you the best room we have available," the girl said. "Whenever you're ready, I'll show you up."

"Thank you kindly," Roland said as he stood. "Would you mind taking us there now?"

"Not at all," the girl said. She started her way toward the stairs with Roland right behind her. Tyrus followed disapprovingly. It wasn't that he scorned Roland's charity, only that Roland wanted to waste more time here. So much time had been wasted already.

Tyrus and Roland spent the night at the inn without so much as getting a glimpse of the owner. Their room was on the second floor, and Tyrus supposed the owner's was on the third floor. That's where the girl went that evening after she closed up the tavern, but she came back down shortly. Tyrus thought he might see her bring the babe back up, but she never did. She must have been caring for him in her own room. Perhaps she went upstairs to bring the innkeeper food, though Tyrus couldn't imagine the man would want to eat if he wouldn't even see his own son.

When Tyrus woke the next morning, Roland's bed was made and he was gone. It wasn't the first time Roland had gone off on his own to search for Richter, though it certainly hadn't happened often. Roland left no instructions that morning, but Tyrus knew to stay put. That was the way he preferred it, in fact. After all, he was still a Templar recruit; it was better for everyone that he stayed put rather than travel around asserting authority that he did not yet have. And better that he not waste his energy searching when it might be needed elsewhere.

The same patrons that were at the tavern the evening before were present that morning as well, and the serving girl had her hands full juggling the clients and the babe. She brought Tyrus a tankard of water when he sat down followed by a bowl of hot soup. "How much for the soup," Tyrus asked, as much out of curiosity as for filling the silence with words.

"Breakfast is complementary with a room," she said.

"Is that the way of it?" Tyrus said. He had his doubts. People frequently offered free goods to Templars, though their motivations differed.

"That is the way of it," the girl said with her brows scrunched. "Even if it wasn't, it's the least I could do considering the generous patronage you and your companion gave last night."

Tyrus wasn't about to complain. He could think of much worse things than getting a free breakfast—like being out and about with Roland on his wild-goose chase. He took his first bite and recognized the flavor immediately. "Pork bisque," Tyrus said to the girl before she could walk away. "This was my mother's favorite meal." He nodded his head in thanks and took another bite. "The boar has to boil for a long time. You must have been up early this morning."

The girl glanced back at the cooking range, probably eying the cradle tucked away in the back corner. "Babes have a way of keeping you up half the night," she said.

"You didn't happen to see Knight-Captain Roland leave this morning, did you," Tyrus asked.

The girl shuffled away from Tyrus' table at an angle, no doubt eager to get back to work. "Your companion, he's a Knight-Captain?"

"That's right," Tyrus said. "Did you happen to see him this morning?"

"He left early," the girl said.

"Yes, I know that," Tyrus said, "but do you know where he was going?"

The Marcher seated at a nearby table interceded with a chuckle. "He didn't tell _you_ where he was going?" he said.

Tyrus set his fist, spoon still in hand, down on the table and glared at the Marcher. "No, he didn't," he said. "He probably thought he would be back by now."

"Seleny is a modest town," the Marcher said, pausing to chew on a leafy stem. "Not many places to hide. I'm sure you'll find him if you take two seconds to look. Though you seem adverse to the idea. Looking, I mean."

The Marcher smirked, and Tyrus felt his head get hot. "You would mock a Templar?" Tyrus said.

The smirk stayed on the Marcher's face. "Last time I checked, your armor puts you in recruit status. Don't think too highly of yourself, lad."

Tyrus almost lunged across the room at that, but the serving girl stepped between them. "That's enough," she said. "Massimo would never have this. If you don't behave yourselves…"

She was interrupted mid-sentence by the tavern doors slamming open. Two people came through dragging Roland by the arms behind them. In one movement, they hoisted him up off the ground and onto the nearest table, knocking off all manner of dining-ware in the process. The way his body jarred when his armor hit the table sent chills down Tyrus spine. There was a splintered wooden pole protruding from the small gap between Roland's shoulder armor and his chest plate.

"What in the Maker's name happened," Tyrus asked, pivoting around tables and chairs in just a few steps. It was only a few seconds from the time they brought Roland into the tavern to the time Tyrus was at his side. Blood was already pooling on the table and filling the small cracks in the wood when Tyrus got there.

"Qunari… Scouts," Roland said, choking up blood in the process.

"The Qunari," the Marcher said. He was at Roland's side, too, inspecting the wound. "That's impossible. They only just took Afsaana."

One of the men who brought Roland through the door said, "They could have been circling around this whole time."

"Of course," the Marcher said. "They plan to take Antiva City."

"No," Roland said, coughing up more blood. "No, they can't."

"The Divine is there," Tyrus said with wide eyes. He moved his hands to inspect Roland's wound himself, but the Marcher batted him away. The Marcher pulled back the chest plate and traced the trajectory of the pole arm with his eyes. He stood up straight after that and took his hands away, and then he shook his head.

"It's too close to his heart," the Marcher said. "It may have even nicked it."

"No," Tyrus said. "There has to be something… Knight-Captain!"

Roland coughed again, and a clot of blood made its way up his throat. He gasped then, as if about to speak. Then his chest fell slowly and his jaw dropped the rest of the way open. When Tyrus looked at Roland's eyes, they were empty, unmoving, and unblinking. Tyrus shook Roland's shoulders, once, twice, then relentlessly, disturbing the pool of blood below his body so that it spilled off the table and onto the floor. Then Tyrus turned to the Marcher and grabbed him by the shoulders. One shake was all it took before the Marcher had Tyrus up against the wall with his arms restrained.

"It's too late," the Marcher said through his teeth.

"Wait," the serving girl said, her hands shaking as much as Tyrus' were. "Maybe I can help him."

The Marcher released Tyrus and turned to the girl. "There is nothing you can do, Maeve," he said, "Not unless you intend to trade one life for another."

"You don't know that," she shouted. "Maybe I can heal him."

The girl raised her hands up to Roland's body, and Tyrus could see the scars and blisters. Tyrus pulled his sword from his belt and the babe in the corner started to cry. Her hands told him everything. She barely even had to start summoning her gift.

"Apostate," he shouted at her. He advanced toward her with his sword leading the way, but the Marcher pulled out his own weapons and stuck them against Tyrus' throat. Tyrus kept his weapon raised toward the girl but glanced at the Marcher. "If you protect her," Tyrus said, "you will suffer the consequences too."

The Marcher grinded his jaw. "You're crossing a very dangerous line, lad," he hissed.

"Now is hardly the time," someone said. The voice came from the staircase and drew the eyes of everyone in the room. When Tyrus' eyes met the source, he saw an Antivan with dark circles under his eyes slumping down the last few steps. The Antivan looked at the Marcher, then at Tyrus, and said, "You heard what he said. Qunari scouts. The Qunari are beating down our door."

"Why haven't they attacked yet," one of the patrons asked.

The Antivan—Tyrus assumed he was Massimo—crossed the room to Roland's body and examined the broken pole arm. He looked up at the tavern doors and stared, longer, and longer. Tyrus didn't withdraw his sword, but he glanced toward the doors. He didn't see anything. He almost asked Massimo what he was looking for, but then he heard it—distant cries and screams. And once he willed his way past the smell of Roland's blood, he could smell the smoke.

"I would guess they just began their attack," Massimo said in a soft voice, "once they realized the Templars aren't here in force. They'll be coming quickly now."

The Marcher took his twin blades from Tyrus' neck and sheathed them. Tyrus did the same with his own weapon, though he didn't take his eyes off the apostate for a second. "Then it's time for us to leave," the Marcher said.

The other patrons didn't wait for any more to be said; they ran. Tyrus thought the apostate would try to follow, but she stayed, and not because he was standing in her way. Her eyes were fixed on Roland's body. His eyes were starting to glaze over and the blood had stopped flowing out of him. Already his skin was white as a sheet. To Tyrus, he was almost unrecognizable, a different Roland than the one he'd been sharing the road with. That Roland was gone.

"Maeve," Massimo said, his voice still soft. Then Tyrus realized that it wasn't soft; it was grief. He was exhausted from tears and hunger and sleep deprivation. He looked like a shell of a man. He barely had the strength to walk, let alone run. It took all of his strength to cross the room to the crib of his child and raise the babe into his arms. Despite the loss of his wife in the tragedy of the child's birth, Tyrus could see love in Massimo's eyes as he stared down at the babe. "Maeve," Massimo repeated before he looked up at the girl. "It's time for you to go."

Tyrus realized it at the same time Maeve did—this man didn't intend to run. "Massimo," she said. "You're coming too. You have to come."

"No," Massimo said as he shook his head. He cooed at the crying babe. "No, no, Maeve," he said.

"Why," the apostate said. She was close to tears. "Why won't you come?"

"I know what you did," Massimo said as he stared at the babe, and Tyrus didn't know who the man was talking to anymore. Clearly the loss of his wife had deranged him. "Go. This is how it must be. He has no place in this world, and my days are coming to an end."

"Don't say that, Massimo," the girl said. Tears were falling from her cheeks now, and it brought light to the grief in Tyrus' own chest. That was when it hit him that Roland was dead. Roland was dead, the Qunari were here, and Tyrus was alone. He was on the precipice of chaos. And right there with him was an apostate, a Marcher, and a man committed to his own death.

"Tal," Massimo said to the Marcher. "Will you make sure Maeve gets away safely?"

"Of course," the Marcher said.

"No," Tyrus heard himself say. His voice was strange, gruff, deep—the voice of a man much older than Tyrus. The voice of a man broken. "Mages belong in the Circle," he said. "The apostate comes with me, or I will be forced to do my duty."

"Sheath your grief," the Marcher said. "This is neither the time nor place, and you know it."

"I cannot allow the apostate to walk free," Tyrus said.

The Marcher shrugged. "Then come with us," he said. "Or stay here and die at the hands of the Qunari." He walked past Tyrus and grabbed the apostate by the arm.

"No, no," she cried, fighting the way the Marcher dragged her along. "Massimo," she said, but Massimo was already gone—not in body, but in spirit. He stared at his babe, rocked him back and forth, cooed and hummed, but he didn't seem to hear Maeve's cries. Either that or he just didn't care.

"Are you coming?" the Marcher said to Tyrus. The cries and screams from outside were getting louder, and flecks of ash fell just outside the door.

Between Roland's body, the apostate girl, and a stricken man singing to his child, Tyrus felt like he was swirling uncontrollably in a deep black pit. He felt cold but knew that it was only the shivers running through his body, the mixture of sadness and anger and fear. For one single moment, his duty didn't matter to him. He just had to get away. He touched a hand to Roland's shoulder and then he followed the Marcher and the apostate out the door.

Outside it looked like the Black City, and the not-so-distant screams and cries of the frightened, the dying, and the wounded made Tyrus think of the Void. All around him it sounded like demons and abominations were walking the face of Thedas. In his company he heard the worst demon of all—the cries of an apostate being dragged away from a loved one that soon turned to harrowing screams. It occurred to Tyrus then for the very first time.

The Maker truly had left this world.


End file.
